Philips DVP3150V HiFi DVD/VCR Combo

This product(Philips DVP3150V HiFi DVD/VCR Combo, Purchased on 11/09/2008)was supposedly refurbished but the VCR section was defective. I returned it to the DiscountJungle/Amazon.com vendor but still haven't received a replacement.
Fred Schroeder

Pluses: Low price, combo DVD/VCR.
Minuses: poor screen quality, quirks.
We use it for time-shifting news programs, which doesn't require great clarity, and for very occasional DVD watching. We learned how to do this, which it does well enough, and the price (about $55, shipping and all) was right.
It records only the top half of the screen in color; the bottom half fades into black and white. It may be because we bought a refurbished model.
It can only be programmed for 8 recordings at a time. It may be skimpy if you have a lot to record, but for most people it's fine.
The DVD player seems to work fine. We haven't really used it.
The remote is the usual: 100 similar-looking buttons that change what they do depending on their mood. If you could use your previous VCR, you can learn this one.
The operation has some quirks. If it's programmed to record something, the timer button turns on the VCR. Once it's on, the power button turns it off so it won't record. Pressing the timer button again turns it off so it *will* record. If you had pressed the power button to turn it on, it would have turned on the DVD; to control the VCR, you have to press the DVD/VCR button. I think.

I am so glad I ordered this DVD/VCR combo. I still have a lot of movies on VHS so rather than get rid of them, purchase the movies all over again on DVD, I decided to order this wonderful machine. Now I can enjoy all my favorite old movies and my favorite new releases on the same machine. I love it!

This unit was bought at a great price. It arrived in its original factory carton and everything I needed for a fast hookup was in the box. I have been using it for a month and am completely satisfied. While it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a more expensive unit, it work just fine for our needs.

Based on my personal experience with the Philips DVP 3150V: I bought this for my parents so they could view DVD video sent to them from our family from the East coast. The DVDs that they received were produced on excellent video equipment but did not play on the DVD player despite all of the manual's "Hoorah." I could play the DVDs on my computer so I went out and bought seven different types of DVD+R and DVD-R media. None of them worked. Simple 30 minute DVDs didn't work at all; NONE. I immediately brought them my Daewoo which proceeded to play every DVD and is six years older than the Philips. I won't knock the play of pre-recorded and regular rental DVDs for that it's excellent but if you want to watch DVD videos made by family and friends from all over the globe, some in hostile areas, I'm convinced, this is not the VCR/DVD Player to go with. It's garbage and the mere fact it doesn't play our family/friends movies means that whatever Philips wrote on the box to sell it can't always be believed. The remote, well, I won't even comment about that. This is something that would be great for a classroom but it doesn't belong in a living room during a holiday when it fails to play family made DVD videos. The only reason it gets a "one star" rating is because amazon's system won't let me grade that low. Emotions are what fuel our happiness and right now, I ain't very happy. Skip this one, look at an eight year old Daewoo. Disclaimer: Once again, this is based on my personal experience with the Philips DVP 3150V.